This project is about halfway through. Serial number 23 is a concert size ukulele with a pineapple shaped body. Sides and back: Canary wood, 3/32" thick. Soundboard: Western Red Cedar, 0.22" thick. Inner surface relief carved to 3/32" thick with full thickness material left to accommodate bracing and outer edges. Neck: Mahogany Head Veneer: Brazilian Rosewood Fretboard: TBD Bridge: Brazilian Rosewood
Also looking forward to seeing more. Also loving that T-Track jig. I have a lot of T Track, and after seeing this am seeing new ways to use it. Wondering if you could illustrate your round clamping pads, close pic, or explanation as to what I am seeing? Those behind on the rack, appear to be stacked washers, OR plywood, From the tops of the ones in use they look to be solid, and the holes don't appear to be dead centered, is there science there, or just any old hole works as well as a centered one?
Being more into box like shapes I could see my "pads" being squares, rectangles, or triangles, but for the softer curves of stringed instruments I can see roundish would be smoother, gentler. Really cool jig, makes me want to run back to the shop and start making. :-)
Wondering if you could illustrate your round clamping pads, close pic, or explanation as to what I am seeing?
The Clamping pads are just large dowel stock. Literally an old broom stick for the larger ones. The ones with the off-center holes were originally used in a different type of fixture and were used as cam clamps. I rarely use that type of fixture any more.
Those behind on the rack, appear to be stacked washers, OR plywood
Those are referred to as Cello Clamps. I use them to clamp the soundboard and back to the sides during glue-up. They're cut from solid maple using a hole saw from both sides to avoid tear-out, then cleaned up on a disc sander. I suppose the hole saw leaves rings that make it look like a laminated material or stacked washers.
When gluing in rabbeted box bottoms, i always cut a thick caul slightly smaller that the bottom in case the bottom is slightly recessed. These Cello clamps are a real wake up call, no more wasting flat stock for one-offs! 🙄(DOH!)
Love the jigs and clamps great stuff, just waiting to hear a rendition of Stairway to Heaven upon completion! Keep up the good work most interesting workshop.
Out of the assembly fixture now. I relief carved the inner surface of the soundboard using a small router plane (also a large router plane which is not shown) and fitted the braces. One coat of shellac on the inner surfaces. Almost ready for the soundboard glue-up. For more complete details of this build, visit my blog and build gallery
Wild! Most of my engineering design work was completely rectilinear. It has taken me some time to get over that, when learning wood carving. Your ability for building curvy things is admirable.
Had to stop and take a breath before I raced into the next step. I was all ready to glue-up the soundboard when I realized that gluing the bridge to the soundboard will be a more complicated process than if the ukulele had a conventional round soundhole. Normally, a few light duty deep-reach clamps will do the trick but in this case the soundholes are too far away and too small for a normal clamp. The bridge should be installed as one of the last steps in the process to simplify the finishing and to ensure it is properly positioned. That constraint means I can't install the bridge to the soundboard before installing the soundboard to the body. After considering a few options, I decided to make a pair of custom clamps.
They had to be deep enough to reach the bridge, narrow enough to fit into the soundhole, curved, in order to clear the braces and facilitate the insertion into the sound box.
This is what I came up with:
The center piece that is inside the soundbox is 1/4" Birch Plywood. The two outer arms are 1/8" Birch Plywood with glue blocks to hold them together. There is a 1/4" dowel near the pivot point that helps stabilize the whole thing while in use. 5 or 6 rubber bands provide enough pressure to clamp the bridge in place for gluing.
This all seems like a lot of effort to accommodate one step in the build, but this is kind of a typical situation in lutherie. I find myself having to make a lot of custom tools to meet assembly requirements. I may never use these clamps again unless I build another copy of this instrument or another that has similar geometrical constraints. But if that situation does come up, I'll be ready.
